The Book of Curses - Page 2

estimate that more than half these Gothic forms
have altogether passed out of memory. There must have been some splendid
things in Erse and Gaelic too; for the Celtic mind, with its more vivid
sense of colour, its quicker transitions, and deeper emotional quality,
has ever over-cursed the stolid Teuton. But it is all getting forgotten.

"Indeed, your common Englishman now scarcely curses at all. A more
colourless and conventional affair than what in England is called
swearing one can scarcely imagine. It is just common talk, with some
half-dozen orthodox bad words dropped in here and there in the most
foolish and illogical manner. Fancy having orthodox unorthodox words! I
remember one day getting into a third-class smoking carriage on the
Metropolitan Railway about one o'clock, and finding it full of rough
working men. Everything they said was seasoned with one incredibly
stupid adjective, and no doubt they thought they were very desperate
characters. At last I asked them not to say that word again. One
forthwith asked me 'What the ----'--I really cannot quote these
puerilities--'what the idiotic _cliché_ that mattered to me?' So I
looked at him quietly over my glasses, and I began. It was a revelation
to these poor fellows. They sat open-mouthed, gasping. Then those that
were nearest me began to edge away, and at the very next station they
all bundled out of the carriage before the train stopped, as though I
had some infectious disease. And the thing was just a rough imperfect
rendering of some mere commonplaces, passing the time of day as it were,
with which the heathen of Aleppo used to favour the servants of the
American missionary. Indeed," said Professor Gargoyle, "if it were not
for women there would be nothing in England that one could speak of as
swearing at all."

"I say," said I, "is not that rather rough on the ladies?"

"Not at all; they have agreed to consider certain words, for no very
good reason, bad words. It is a pure convention; it has little or
nothing to do with the actual meaning, because for every one of these
bad words there is a paraphrase or synonym considered to be quite
suitable for polite ears. Hence the feeblest creature can always produce
a sensation by breaking the taboo. But women are learning how to undo
this error of theirs now. The word 'damn,' for instance, is, I hear,
being admitted freely into the boudoir and feminine conversation; it is
even considered a rather prudish thing to object to this word. Now, men,
especially feeble men, hate doing things that women do. As a
consequence, men who go about saying 'damn' are now regarded by their
fellow-men as only a shade less effeminate than those who go about
saying